Shallow hopper car



March 29, 1966 w. L. FLOEHR SHALLOW HOFPER CAR 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 mwnEOI BOJ ZIm Inventor: Walter L. Floehr Filed Feb. 7, 1963 Attorney March 29, 1966 w. FLOEHR SHALLOW HOPPER CAR 5 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Feb. '7, 1963 Inventor:

Walter L. Floehr FIG. 6

his Attorney March 1966 w. FLOEHR SHALLOW HOPPER cAR Filed Feb. '7, 1963 Inventor:

3 Sheets-Sheet 3 Walter L. Floehr his Aflorney United States Patent 3,242,878 SHALLOW HOPPER CAR Walter L. Floehr, Toledo, Ohio, assignor to Unitcast Corporation, Toledo, Ohio, a corporation of Ohio Filed Feb. 7, 1963, Ser. No. 256,868 8 Claims. (Cl. 105248) This invention relates to railway hopper cars and has for its primary object the provision of an improved hopper car having a major part of its bottom openable for quick discharge of lading.

Hopper cars built in the past twenty-five years generally have been of the sawtooth hopper design, depicted schematically at the left in FIGURE 1 and so-called because each of the hoppers is closed by a single door, with the doors all disposed at the same oblique angle and those at the same side of the transverse centerline of the car usuallyfacing in the same direction. Such cars are effective in normal operation, but, as indicated in FIG- URE 1, considerably less than half of their bottoms are openable. As a consequence, a bottleneck has developed in the recently introduced concept of moving lading in mass by integral trains in attempting unsuccessfully to unload the cars within the scheduled time of no more than a minute per car.

Prior to standardization upon the sawtooth hopper in 1928, the standard hopper car built for the railroads was of the shallow hopper design in which each discharge opening was closed by a pair of opposing doors which in closed position sloped downwardly toward each other and met along their distal ends. With its openings on either side of the center sills much larger and more closely spaced, a shallow hopper car was openable over a major part of its bottom and thus could be unloaded much more rapidly than a sawtooth hopper car. In this respect, the use of shallow rather than sawtooth hoppers in integral trains therefore would be of definite advantage. However, the factors that led to abandonment of the shallow hopper in favor of the sawtooth mitigate against such use. The very size of its discharge openings and dependence for closing them upon the meeting of their pairs of doors made it impossible to surround the openings with frame sections of adequate strength to avoid leakage of lading and failure of the sections in transit due to Weaving of the body and during loading from lading impact.

An object of this invention is to provide an improved shallow hopper car which, while openable over a major part of its bottom, has its discharge openings so framed as to prevent lading leakage and failure of the framing either'in transit or during loading.

Another object of the invention is to provide a shallow hopper having a discharge opening closed by a pair of doors wherein each door seats against its own individual frame and the frames, not the doors, meet and the frames are of such construction and so joined as to ensure against their failure and leakage of lading under service conditions.

A further object of the invention is to provide a shallow hopper which not only does not have the shortcomings of but is simpler and less expensive than a conventional shallow hopper in eliminating the expensive forming of the inside and outside hopper sheets of the conventional design.

An additional object of the invention is to provide a shallow hopper which is of adequate strength to withstand service. shocks and, as well, makes maximum economical use of the space within A.A.R. equipment limit lines.

Other objects and advantages of the invention will appear hereinafter in the detailed description and be particularly pointed out in the appended claims and illustrated in the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIGURE 1 is a schematic view depicting at left and ice right the parts of the bodies, respectively, of a sawtooth and a shallow hopper car at opposite sides of their transverse centerlines and showing the relative longitudinal dimensions of their discharge openings;

FIGURE 2 is a fragmentary side elevational view of a preferred embodiment of the shallow hopper car of the present invention, with portions removed and shown in section to more clearly illustrate certain of the details of construction;

FIGURE 3 is a view of the structure of FIGURE 2 with the lock removed, the figure being taken partly in end elevation and partly along lines 33 of FIGURE 2;

FIGURE 4 is a fragmentary vertical sectional View on an enlarged scale taken along lines 4-4 of FIGURE 3;

FIGURE 5 is a fragmentary sectional view on the scale of FIGURE 4 taken along lines 55 of FIGURE 2; and

FIGURE 6 is a fragmentary vertical sectional view taken along lines 6-6 of FIGURE 4 with a portion of the lock removed.

Referring now in detail to the drawings in which like reference characters designate like parts, the improved shallow hopper car 1 of the present invention, as indicated in FIGURE 1, usually Will be compartmented or partitioned longitudinally into a plurality of compartments or bins 2, each having, at either side of the center sills 3, a plurality of shallow hoppers 4. It also will be usual to align each hopper 4 laterally with a hopper on the other side of the center sills 3 and to space the hoppers of a compartment 2 on each side of the sills longitudinally from each other by suitably reinforced transverse ridge sheets 5 and from the aligned hoppers on the other side by a longitudinal deflector or ridge sheet 6 upstanding from and overlying the center sills. Too, like the transverse partition 7 separating adjoining compartments, the ridge sheets 5 and 6 ordinarily will be of inverted V-shape with their sides sloping downwardly toward adjoining hoppers to direct lading thereunto.

The effective area of an opening in the bottom of a hopper car, determinative of the rate at which a particular lading can be discharged by gravity throughit, is not its actual but its horizontal area and thus, for a rectangular opening, the product of the horizontal projections of its length and width. Of these effective or projected dimensions producing the effective area of the opening, the lateral or transverse dimension will ordinarily be the actual width but, for either a sawtooth or a shallow hopper, will be governed by the space available at each side between the center sills and the lateral limits imposed by A.A.R. equipment limit lines. The effective widths of individual openings of the sawtooth and shallow hopper designs therefore have the same maximum limit. However, this does not hold true of the effective lengths of the openings of the two designs, the limits imposed on the size of any drop bottom door by A.A.R. equipment limit lines necessarily enabling a tWin-doored shallow hopper opening to have substantially double the maximum effective length and areaof a single-doored sawtooth hopper opening. Nor is there sameness in the combined areas of the openings providable for a given car with the two designs.

As FIGURE 1 plainly shows with respect to the foregoing ditferences, each design will enable a car to have the same number of openings. However, due to the lesser longitudinal spacing needed between shallow hopper openings, a shallow hopper car in its discharge openings can have about double the total effective area obtainiable in a sawtooth hopper, with correspondingly greater rate of unloading.

With the above capability in unloading, a shallow hopper would be ideally suited for use in the mass movement of lading by integral trains, except for the earlier mentioned shortcomings of such cars in the past. The

3 shallow hopper car of this invention, while having the capability for rapid unloading of previous shallow hoppers, possesses none of their disadvantages.

As in the conventional design, each of the shallow hoppers 40f the car 1 of this invention is adapted to be closed by a pair or plurality of or twin opposing doors 8 swingable vertically in opposite directions between open andclosed positions about longitudinally spaced, transversely disposed axes and in closed. position sloping or inclined downwardly toward each other with their distal or free ends adjacent. However, unlike those of the conventional design, the doors 8 do not close an otherwise uninterrupted discharge opening and depend for closing upon meeting and interfitting of their distal ends. Instead, while each hopper 4 is bounded upwardly by end and side sheets 9 and 16, respectively, and has a single central opening 11, that opening is interrupted or divided longitudinally, preferably midway of its ends and below those sheets, by transverse or cross tie, brace, strut or member 12. extending horizontally across the opening. Not only is the opening 11 interrupted, but the doors 8, rather than meeting to close the opening, are provided with individual seats 13 each bounding or encircling one of the longitudinally spaced discharge outlets or openings 14 into which the single opening 11 is. divided by the cross tie 12. In closed position seating against its individual seat13 and closing the outlet 14v bounded thereby, each door 8 is swingably or hingedly mounted on the underside of the car adjacent one of the opposite ends of the hopper 4..

In the preferred construction, the cross tie 12 is not simply a rigid connection or reinforcement between opposite sides of its hopper 4 but is in part integral or rigid with and formed by one side of each of a pair of cast or otherwise suitably formed frames 15 each bounding one of the outlets 14. Generally rectangular, the frames 15, to facilitate closing of the doors 8, preferably are downwardly convergent or slope or are inclined downwardly toward each other. The upper or far side or side wall 16.0f each of the frames abuts against the outer face of the end sheet 9 of the hopper at the adjoining end of the opening 11 and, as by riveting, is suitably connected or fixed to or made rigid with that sheet. The opposite, lower or near side or side wall 17 of each frame, in its turn, abuts against the corresponding side of the other frame and these lower sides of the frames are rigidly joined, connected or fixed to each other to form the cross tie 12, in thise case preferably by a combination of welding and bolting. Of the remaining sides of each frame, the inner or inboard side 18 extends diagonally of and abuts against and is partly backed by the outer face of the vertical web 20 of the adjacent center sill 3 and is anchored or fixed to or made rigid with that sill, suitably by riveting.

While the side sheets might be extended downwardly to meet the inboard or inner and outboard or outer sides or side walls 18 and 19, respectively, of the frames 15, it is more practical and less expensive to terminate those sheets, as well as the end sheets 9, within the vertical limits of the upper sides 16 of the frames and fill, cover or enclose the intervening, otherwise open portions of the sides of the hopper between the side sheets and the inner and outer sides of the frames by inner and outer supplemental or auxiliary side sheets. or side or cover plates 21 and 22, respectively. Fitting outside the side sheets 10 and inside the inner and outer sides 18 and 19 of the frames, so as not to interfere with the discharge of lading, the cover plates 21 and 22 are riveted or otherwise suitably connected, fixed or secured to the main side sheets and corresponding sides of the frames.

With the frames of each hopper 4 backed along their inner sides 18 by and anchored to the adjoining center sill 3, the outer cover plate 22 to which their outer sides 19 are secured itself secured at the top to the adjoining side sill 23 and the upper sides 16 of the frames secured to the end sheets 9, a strong connection is provided between the frames and adjoining parts of the car. However, the ample strength of the structure as a whole to withstand service shocks and seat the doors such that there will be no leakage of lading, in the main is the result of the joining of the twin frames along their lower sides 17. The cross tie 12 formed by the joined lower sides 17 of the frames 15, positioned as it is intermediate or between the longitudinal limits of the opening 11 and the relatively angled outlets 14, must not only withstand impact from the lading in both loading and unloading, but in unloading must also. direct the lading in the central portion of the hopper into the outlets. To these ends, the cross tie. isv of inverted V-shape in cross-section to deflect the lading into the outlets 14. Also, its legs, formed by the lower sides 17 of, the frames 15, are buttressed, by progressively thickening them toward their juncture, to strengthen the cross tie against vertical impacts and loads end, incidentally, provide a bearing area of considerable vertical extent along the joint between the vertically disposed, abutting or engaging, confronting faces or surfaces 24 of the lower; sides. This progressive thickening; of they midi-portion 25 of the cross tie is applied throughout the latters length except at intervals therealong where the sides are slotted, as at 26, and apertured to receive bolts 27,, a function of; which is to enable the frames-in assembly to be. drawn together in proper relative position before the joint between them is. welded. The welded joint between the twin frames preferably is not limited to their lower sides 17; but. extends also to their inner and outer sides 18 and 19, each of which at either end of the cross tie isv so configured as to have a vertically directed lower end .28 of substantial extent engageable with and weldable to the corresponding side of the other frame. While sufiiciently rugged to withstand service shocks, the cross tie 12 is quite narrow relative to the length of the opening 11 which it divides transversely into the outlets 14. Consequently, the outlets 14 are larger in their actual areas than and substantially equal in their effective areas to the horizontal cross-sectional area ofthe hopper at the level of the upper extremities of the outlets.

Conveniently hinged to the upper side 16 of the related frame 15, each of the doors 8, in the usual manner of hopper doors, has an upturned peripheral flange 29 adapted to overlap the frame beyond the seat 13 thereon when the door is closed. Each of the doors 8 may be locked in closed position by a suitable lock 30, such as that illustrated, in which a hook 31 pivoted to a bracket 32, mounted on the outer side 19 of the related frame, is engageable with a catch 33 of the type shown in Kadel Patent 2,294,502, issued on September 1, 1942, which is carried by the door and adjustable relative thereto for adjusting the fit between the door and its seat 13. If, as in the illustrated embodiment, the doors are lockable only at their outer sides, it is desirable that the corresponding doors of laterally aligned hoppers 4 at opposite sides of the center sills 3 be rigidly connected for operation in unison and to prevent twisting, as by an I-beam 34 extending across their outer faces 35, the illustrated, beam in its web 36 also providing a convenient seat for the catches 33 of the doors it connects.

From the above-detailed description, it will be appar cut that there has been provided an improved shallow hopper car capable of being unloaded rapidly and having hoppers of adequate strength to withstand service shocks. It should be understood that the described and disclosed embodiment is merely exemplary of the. invention and that all modifications are intended to be included that do not depart from the spirit of the invention or the scope of the appended claims.

Having described my invention, I claim:

1. A shallow hopper car comprising a body having at each side of center sills a plurality of longitudinally spaced hoppers each having a downwardly opening top opening, frame means fixed to each hopper and bounding and centrally dividing the opening thereof into a pair of longitudinally spaced downwardly convergent outlets together having an actual area greater than and an effective area substantially equal to the horizontal cross-sectional area of the hopper at the level of the upper extremities of said outlets, a pair of downwardly facing and convergent seats on each frame means each bounding one of said outlets, and a pair of doors for and hinged to an outside of each frame means for closing the outlets therein, said doors of each pair being swingable oppositely longitudinally of the car from downward convergent closed positions against said seats to substantially vertical open positions.

2. In a hopper car having a shallow hopper closable by a pair of doors swingable oppositely longitudinally of the car, the combination of a pair of downwardly convergent frames together bounding an opening in said hopper, said frames being joined along adjoining sides for centrally dividing said opening into a pair of longitudinally spaced outlets each bounded by one of said frames, and a pair of downwardly facing and convergent seats one on each frame about the outlet therein for seating one of said doors.

3. In a hopper car having hoppers on opposite sides of center sills thereof, each closable by a pair of oppositely swinging doors, the combination of a pair of downwardly convergent frames together bounding an opening in each of said hoppers, said frames being anchored along inner sides thereof to an adjoining center sill, and said frames being joined along adjoining sides to divide said opening centrally into a pair of longitudinally spaced outlets each bounded by one of said frames and closable by one of said doors, and a pair of downwardly facing and convergent seats each on one of said frames about the outlet therein for seating the related door.

4. In a shallow hopper bounded upwardly by end and main side sheets and having an opening closable by a pair of oppositely swinging doors, the combination of a pair of downwardly convergent frames extending below said sheets, each of said frames having an upper side connected to one of said end sheets, said frames having lower sides connected to each other and together bounding and dividing said opening into a plurality of longitudinally spaced outlets each closable by one of said doors, downwardly facing and convergent seats each on one of said frames about the outlet therein for seating the related door, and cover plates at inner and outer sides of said hopper each extending between one of said side sheets and the corresponding sides of said frames.

5. In a shallow hopper car having center sills, a hopper at a side of said sills having an opening and bounded upwardly by end and side sheets, and a pair of oppositely swinging doors for closing said opening, the combination of a pair of downwardly convergent frames extending below said sheets, each of said frames having an upper side connected to one of said end sheets and another side anchored to an adjoining center sill, said frames having lower sides connected to each other and together bounding and dividing said opening into a plu rality of longitudinally spaced outlets each closable by one of said doors, a pair of downwardly facing and convergent seats each on one of said frames about the outlet therein for seating the related door, and cover plates at inner and outer sides of said hopper each extending between one of said side sheets and the corresponding sides of said frames.

6. In a shallow hopper bounded upwardly by end and side sheets and having an opening closable by a pair of oppositely swinging doors, the combination of a pair of downwardly convergent frames extending below said sheets, each of said frames having an upper side connected to one of said end sheets, said frames having lower sides connected to each other and together bounding and dividing said opening into a plurality of longitudinally spaced outlets each closable by one of said doors, a pair of downwardly facing and convergent seats each on one of said frames about the outlet therein for seating the related door, cover plates at inner and outer sides of said hopper each extending between one of said side sheets and the corresponding sides of said frames, and means for positioning said frames relative to each other during assembly.

7. In a shallow hopper closable by a pair of oppositely swinging doors, the combination of a pair of frames together bounding an opening in said hopper and joined to each other along adjoining sides, said sides being of progressively increasing thickness toward the joint therebetween and together forming a cross member of inverted V-shape dividing said opening into longitudinally spaced outlets each bounded by one of said frames and closable by one of said doors, and a pair of downwardly facing and convergent seats each on one of said frames about the outlet therein for seating the related door.

8. In a hopper car having center and side sills, a shallow hopper disposed between said sills and bounded upwardly by end and side sheets, and a pair of oppositely swinging doors for closing an opening in said hopper, the combination of a pair of downwardly convergent frames projecting below said sheets and having upper sides connected to said end sheets, said frames below said sheets being joined together along lower sides and at lower ends of inner and outer sides at opposite ends of said lower sides, said lower sides being progressively thickened toward the joint therebetween and together forming a cross member of inverted V-shape dividing said opening into a pair of longitudinally spaced outlets each bounded by one of said frames and closable by one of said doors, a pair of downwardly facing and convergent seats each on one of said frames about the outlet therein for seating the related door, and inner and outer cover plates connected respectively to said center and side sills and each closing a side of said hopper between and connected to a side sheet and corresponding of said inner and outer sides of said frames.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 287,663 10/1883 Godwin -283 1,066,728 7/1913 Harrington 105-296 X 1,121,165 12/1914 Christianson 105-248 1,308,421 7/ 1919 Hillman 105-248 2,042,528 6/1936 Hosceit 105-283 X 2,197,444 4/1940 Wine et a1. 105-283 X 2,348,376 5/1944 Goodwin 105-280 2,835,208 5/1958 Faverty 105-251 2,888,882 6/1959 Dorey 105-250 2,950,144 8/1960 Dorey 105-290 X FOREIGN PATENTS 13,359 1904 Great Britain. 233,686 4/ 1911 Germany.

ARTHUR L. LA POINT, Primary Examiner.

LEO QUACKENBUSH, EUGENE G. BOTZ,

Examiners. 

1. A SHALLOW HOPPER CAR COMPRISING A BODY HAVING AT EACH SIDE OF CENTER SILLS A PLURALITY OF LONGITUDINALLY SPACED HOPPERS EACH HAVING A DOWNWARDLY OPENING TOP OPENING, FRAME MEANS FIXED TO EACH HOPPER AND BOUNDING AND CENTRALLY DIVIDING THE OPENING THEREOF INTO A PAIR OF LONGITUDINALLY SPACED DOWNWARDLY CONVERGENT OUTLETS TEGETHER HAVING AN ACTUAL AREA GREATER THAN AND AN EFFECTIVE AREA SUBSTANTIALLY EQUAL TO THE HORIZONTAL CROSS-SECTIONAL AREA OF THE HOPPER AT THE LEVEL OF THE UPPER EXTREMITIES OF SAID OUTLETS, A PAIR OF DOWNWARDLY FACING AND CONVERGENT SEATS ON EACH FRAME MEANS EACH BOUNDING ONE OF SAID OUTLETS, AND A PAIR OF DOORS FOR AND HINGED TO AN OUTSIDE OF EACH FRAME MEANS FOR CLOSING THE OUTLETS THEREIN, SAID DOORS OF EACH PAIR BEING SWINGABLE OPPOSITELY LONGITUDINALLY OF THE CAR FROM DOWNWARD CONVERGENT CLOSED POSITIONS AGAINST SAID SEATS TO SUBSTANTIALLY VERTICAL OPEN POSITIONS. 